Chul-Hyun Ahn was born in 1971 in Busan, Korea. He received a Bachelor of Fine Arts from the Chu-Gye University for the Arts in Seoul, Korea and a Masters of Fine Arts from the Mount Royal School at the Maryland Institute College of Art in Baltimore. Ahn is an artist of international acclaim, with works in numerous public and private collections including the Margulies Collection at the Warehouse, the Hearst Foundation, Borusan Foundation, Delaware Art Museum, Palm Springs Art Museum, Sammlung Schroth Collection and the Jordan D. Schnitzer Family Foundation.
Ahn creates sculptures utilising light, colour, and illusion. His interest in the gap between the conscious and subconscious compels him to construct illusionistic environments providing a space for contemplation. The resulting light sculptures urge the viewer to consider man’s boundless ability for physical and spiritual travel while exploiting illusions of infinity and the poetics of emptiness.
Ahn’s works create an optical and bodily illusion of infinity through apparent limitless space. The notion of the void distinguishes his work amid the panoply of ways that artists have used light as a medium since the experiments of the 1920s and particularly since the 1960s.
He has had numerous solo and curated group exhibition, including Seeking Perspective (2017) at Galerie Paris-Beijing, Paris, France; Personal Structures: Culture, Mind, Becoming (2013) at Palazzo Bembo, sanctioned by the 55th Venice Biennale, Venice, Italy; Korean Eye (2012) at Saatchi Gallery, London, United Kingdom; Neon (2012) at Museo D’Arte Contemporanea Roma, Rome, Italy; Aha! Moment (2011) at Hangaram Art Museum at Seoul Arts Center, Seoul, Korea; and Visual Echo (2011) at Galerie Paris-Beijing, Paris, France. Chul-Hyun Ahn is represented by C. Grimaldis Gallery in Baltimore, Maryland.